page_title: Atomic clock
hierarchical_section_title: Atomic clock
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Atomuhr FOCS-1 (Schweiz) English: Atomic Clock FOCS-1 (Switzerland). The primary frequency standard device, FOCS-1, one of the most accurate devices for measuring time in the world. It stands in a laboratory of the Swiss Federal Office of Metrology METAS in Bern.
context_page_description: An atomic clock is a clock device that uses a hyperfine transition frequency in the microwave, or electron transition frequency in the optical or ultraviolet region of the electromagnetic spectrum of atoms as a frequency standard for its timekeeping element. Atomic clocks are the most accurate time and frequency standards known, and are used as primary standards for international time distribution services, to control the wave frequency of television broadcasts, and in global navigation satellite systems such as GPS.
  The principle of operation of an atomic clock is based on atomic physics; it measures the electromagnetic signal that electrons in atoms emit when they change energy levels. Early atomic clocks were based on masers at room temperature. Since 2004, more accurate atomic clocks first cool the atoms to near absolute zero temperature by slowing them with lasers and probing them in atomic fountains in a microwave-filled cavity. An example of this is the NIST-F1 atomic clock, one of the national primary time and frequency standards of the United States.
context_section_description: An atomic clock is a clock device (time standard) that uses a hyperfine transition frequency in the microwave, or electron transition frequency in the optical or ultraviolet region of the electromagnetic spectrum of atoms as a frequency standard for its timekeeping element. Atomic clocks are the most accurate time and frequency standards known, and are used as primary standards for international time distribution services, to control the wave frequency of television broadcasts, and in global navigation satellite systems such as GPS.
  The principle of operation of an atomic clock is based on atomic physics; it measures the electromagnetic signal that electrons in atoms emit when they change energy levels. Early atomic clocks were based on masers at room temperature. Since 2004, more accurate atomic clocks first cool the atoms to near absolute zero temperature by slowing them with lasers and probing them in atomic fountains in a microwave-filled cavity. An example of this is the NIST-F1 atomic clock, one of the national primary time and frequency standards of the United States.
  The accuracy of an atomic clock depends on two factors: the first is temperature of the sample atoms—colder atoms move much more slowly, allowing longer probe times, the second is the frequency and intrinsic linewidth of the electronic or hyperfine transition. Higher frequencies and narrow lines increase the precision.
  National standards agencies in many countries maintain a network of atomic clocks which are intercompared and kept synchronized to an accuracy of 10⁻⁹ seconds per day (approximately 1 part in 10¹⁴). These clocks collectively define a continuous and stable time scale, the International Atomic Time (TAI). For civil time, another time scale is disseminated, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). UTC is derived from TAI, but has added leap seconds from UT1, to account for variations in the rotation of the Earth with respect to the solar time.
caption: FOCS 1, a continuous cold caesium fountain atomic clock in Switzerland, started operating in 2004 at an uncertainty of one second in 30 million years.
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